gettin' hitched

amy and i are officially engaged to be married!

we met nearly 5 years ago in portland, oregon by seemingly random circumstances. mandi mcb was a chum from college at iowa state university who grew up in a suburb of washington d.c. she moved to portland in '98 and after a week's vacation in the summer of '99, i decided to move out to portland to live with her and rossi.

amy, hailing from baltimore, went to the university of maryland at college park, yet another of the seemingly countless suburbs of d.c. while studying the art of partying at school, she met rachel wright who is the sister of andrew wright who, very coincidentally, dated mandi mcb in high school near silver spring, maryland.

after finishing her studies in 2000, amy worked in d.c. for a year and during that time grew curious of the west coast and mentioned her interest to andrew wright who mentioned that he had an old friend who lived in portland that he should get in contact with... mandi mcb. amy emailed mandi and asked a few general questions about the city, and after a few correspondences and the luck of timing, mandi invited her to become a roommate in a new house that mandi was moving into. amy and marianna donnelly came out to portland a month or so later, and on the morning of july 18, 2001, a week and a half after amy moved to oregon, we met.

the agenda for the day was a trip to the oregon country fair with the PDX crew. amy came running down the stairs and whirled into the living room of her new surroundings with a freshly showered and dripping wet head. i was entranced. the memory is so very vivid, what struck me were her captivating eyes and the emotion that she shares in the way that she looks at everything.

we fell in love that summer, and vowed to have a relationship with open communication and no "games," only honesty, commitment, understanding, and love. our love is more potent now than it ever has been, it grows everyday as we grow in life, together.

on the afternoon of thursday, march 16, 2006 seated on a bench at the tate modern art gallery in london, england, amy consented to my proposal of marriage. we have no dates planned at this point, and it may not happen until we are done with graduate school a year from this may, but we are very happy to take this next step together. we'll keep you posted on the planning process when details surface.